That night, at the very time the three gentlemen were in the smoking-room busy with their china-bowled pipes, and with silver tankards of beer before them--Heinrich full of happy dreams about his fair-haired cousin and the trick they had played her; the old Count full of memories of Waterloo and the coming war, French insolence, the Vaterland, and all the rest of it; Charlie thinking how divinely Ernestine sang and played, how sweet her downcast lashes looked, how bright her upward glances, how lovely were the white hands that wandered over the ivory keys, and made the said keys look very dark and yellow by comparison, and while to him and Heinrich it seemed that life at Frankenburg would be almost insupportable without the two 'belles' thereof. While all this was being thought of in the smoking-room, we say, the two young ladies were comparing their notes in their mutual dressing-room before retiring for the night to their beds--those most uncomfortable couches which, in 'the Vaterland,' are mere wooden boxes with pillows half-way down, and so arranged that one can neither sit nor lie at full length therein. That Charlie was handsome, agreeable, pleasant, and so forth, was voted and carried _nem. con._, and Ernestine was full of fun and pleasure at the success of her scheme--for with her it originated--for luring Herminia into love with her brother by having him introduced to her as a stranger. 'But oh, Herminia!' she exclaimed, 'to think of you getting the start of me!' 'In what way?' asked Herminia, putting the whitest of feet into the daintiest of slippers. 'In getting engaged _first_; it is most unkind!' continued Ernestine, laughing, as she let down the masses of her dark silky hair. 'You forget, dear cousin, that I was engaged when in my cradle or berceaunette.' Then the two girls, now nearly half-undressed, laughed as only young and happy girls can laugh, and with two snowy arms upheld, and dimpled elbows shown, Ernestine went on brushing out that thick, dark silky hair of hers. 'I declare, Herminia, I _do_ think I am pretty,' said she, suddenly pausing and surveying herself in her laced night-robe in the long cheval glass. 'You are too beautiful not to be quite aware of it,' replied Herminia. 'I wonder if Carl Pierrepont admired me?' 'Why?' 'Because--I should like him to do so.' 'Who could fail to admire you?' responded the happy Herminia. 'How sweetly he sang that song with me.' 'Heinrich tells me he is poor,' was the suggestive remark of Herminia. 'Alas!' after a pause, the former said, smiling. 'Herr Pierrepont scarcely took his gaze off you all the night; when you sang alone he seemed entranced, and when with you, in those duets, his voice became tender and tremulous.' 'Herminia, do you really think so, or do you jest?' 'I do not jest; hence my suggestion about his being poor, for that man is loving you at first sight.'